The Red Balloon
by the croc
Summary: Slash. Draco/Harry A couple of boys are swept away by a war. Very bitter-sweet.


_Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone pertaining to _Harry Potter_. Also- inspired by Ninety-Nine Red Balloons redone by Goldfinger._

_Warnings: main char death, slash of course_

_A/N: So I wrote this for my _Drarry on Remix_ ficlets but it went super long, I fell in love with it, and it turned into its own one-shot so I'm publishing it that way. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I loved writing it, even if it is kinda heavy. Please review!!_

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_The Red Balloon_

The night was clear, a spring breeze stirring the decaying red and brown leaves that still littered the ground, even with the house elves continually spelling the lawn a leafless sterile green. It was still too early for stars though, even as the sun descended upon the horizon and the world darkened around him, struggling against the reds and golds that dappled the grounds, lighting up the stray leaves and evergreens.

The irony was not lost upon him.

_The store was lit in the most wonderful fashion, showcasing all the neat toys Harry would never get to touch but would always admire even if it was always through glass. Grinning broadly, the child's ever inquisitive green eyes admired a toy soldier._

_It was fashioned angularly, the top of its tall wooden black hat (that he knew in real life was quite fuzzy but that was not so with this gleaming toy) an oval but cut off abruptly at the top giving no show of the sloped angles the rest of the hat held. The toy continued that way all the way down from its sharp red coated shoulders and round, tube like belly of painted buttons to its blocky black booted feet._

_Still, Harry thought it was the most beautiful toy he'd ever seen- way better than _any_ of Dudley's Christmas and Birthday presents _combined_ that's for sure!_

_He had just taken his chance to lean in closer (now that the shop keeper was looking away to help some other customer) and to smush his wide, wonder clouded green eyes against the window when he abruptly found himself with company._

_Turning away from his quarry and to the blond who had copied him- smushed face to glass and all- but retained a rather curious stare rather than his own wide eyed look, he could not help but wonder out loud, "What-cha doin'?" _

_"Well," the taller (much to Harry's chagrin) blond backed off the glass the manager was now shooting glares through- though neither boy noticed- to focus better upon his chosen companion, "I was just wondering what you were lookin' at."_

_The raven nodded gravely, as though the words of the pale boy gave him reasons enough to copy his earlier pose and, to a child and his egoistical ways, they probably did. "Well," He startled the blond after being quiet too long, "I was lookin' at that toy soldier over there. I've never seen anything so cool!"_

_For a moment the young blond turned back to where Harry's once again dazed green eyes were turned to study said doll but, finding it lacking, he turned back to what had interested him in the first place, "I think it's stupid."_

_He said it so bluntly as only a child could in such a language that only a child could find truly offensive and not laughable that Harry ire was soon raised, for how could someone insult something so _utterly_ amazing right in front of him? "It is not! You're stupid."_

_The blond would have responded in kind and thus would have begun the animosity filled relationship that the two boys would be later known for if he had not found distraction first, "What's that?"_

_Forgiveness that was so pure and childish soon won over Harry's anger and he turned back to the window, setting dirty palms to it to get a better look. Finding what the blond was pointing at in only a moment, the raven laughed out loud, a high, musical sound that would eventually deepen into a sweet tenor as he aged, "What, 'ave you been livin' in a hole? Those're balloons!" When he only gained a quizzical look from the blond, the raven immediately stepped inside, his hero-like personality shining through early and bought a package with change he had found in the couch and floor boards- because the other boy _had_ to know what he was missing out on!_

_It was a long evening in the park as the two enjoyed the balloons to the fullest and they were on their second to last one- a red balloon as it were- and had been tossing it up in the air and letting it float to the ground, making a game of who could catch it the most when they finally collapsed on the ground, spent from a rare fun day- on both their parts- of childish play._

_"I'm Draco by the way," the blond smiled mischievously at the rosy cheeked raven, "It's a pleasure to meet you."_

_Harry laughed outright- not at the name because it truly was the coolest name he had ever heard in his life- but at the uptight manner Draco had used to introduce himself and the raven thought it sounded way better and real than any of the Dursley's friends with their snooty, oh so _fake_ manners that were merely meant to make others feel foolish. _

_Smiling back, Harry introduced himself; with only his first name of course (he had gotten too many funny looks over the years to even _think_ about telling his _first_ friend his last name. Then he remembered what his teacher had said when Harry had tried out those manners on her (for the first and last time, he had been grounded later for acting "above his station" whatever that means) and he responded because he didn't want Draco to think him not good enough, "Charmed." He was rewarded with the expanding of that pretty smile._

_Then the blond was up and dusting off his funny looking dress (Harry didn't say anything because he had been forced to dress in dresses too when Dudley was in the mood for a laugh) so Harry propped himself up too, unwilling to be left out of whatever game Draco planned then manicured fingers that where far nicer than Harry's own grubby ones were reaching for the nearly empty plastic bag that housed their last balloon (red too) and he was in the process of pulling it out when suddenly the two young boys were surrounded by tall men wearing the same funny dresses (though theirs were matching and not nearly as nice as Draco's) who amazingly popped into existence!_

_Draco looked wide eyed at the men, his hand frozen and just _exuding_ the "caught saying the m-word" look. One of the wierdos stepped forward and said, his voice formal and harsh, "It's time to go home Mr. Malfoy, your parents are very worried."_

_When Harry glanced at the other boy's resigned look, well, he couldn't take this just sitting there! "You'll have to go through me first!" Then he was standing in front of his new friend, bodily protecting him (though he was two inches shorter and fall smaller than the blond) from the other man who had identified himself as the main problem by being the one to speak up._

_Still, good intentioned or not, the child was no match for five full grown men, much less wizards, and he was soon breathing in a gas that would force him to pass off the entire event as a really great dream._

_Except Draco slipped the last balloon in the raven's pocket when he stepped forward to catch his knocked out friend and thus when Harry woke up to an angry aunt and uncle, his heart crushed, it didn't take long for his small hand to slide along a familiar piece of rubber and he was forced to stifle a smile because _Draco was real_!_

Fingering the ever important item in his pocket, Harry stared up at the sky above him. If he wasn't so numb but for the grief that broke upon his heart and swirled ever storm-like clouding the world around him to the point that all that existed was him, the stone beneath his feet and the stars above his head, he would have been angry at the injustice that was his life.

He had, after all, found true happiness just to lose it a moment later.

However, he would not linger upon such thoughts because it was thoughts like those that led to terrible things happening, things that his lover, his Draco would not approve of.

_Harry would visit that toy shop every chance he could give his aunt, uncle and cousin the slip, which was actually pretty often being that he did not exist whenever an important guest arrived and he found it was easier for them to have a silent house when he was not there than for him to sit in a silence he hated._

_Still, years passed by and he did not see the blond again until Hogwarts and by then it was far too late for them to be anything more than caught up in a war that was already a part of both boy's lives- from both birth and the choices of their kin, whether they had been ill intentioned or not- and their relationship had already morphed into a mixture of love and hate._

_It was a rather violent fight that would bring the turn in their relationship because Harry could not resist Draco's challenge and Draco could not resist a chance to finally, _finally_ get the other boy away from both their friends and society so it could be just the two of them._

_Of course an hour later, after they had given each other rather nasty bruises that would be remembered and felt for the week to come Draco was pressing a feathery light, closed mouth kiss to the raven's boyish lips and twin red warmths were blooming in the green eyed boy's cheeks._

He was broken out of his cold ponderings when the first sparkling patronus raced into the sky. From the balcony of the astronomy tower he could see the gathering of hundreds of wizards and witches- muggleborn, half bloods and pure bloods alike- all here to celebrate the most important wizarding tradition: honoring their dead with the beauty of their soul animals.

A half-hearted smile quirked at his lips as he watched a huge number of silver beasts surge into the sky- chasing each other in grim games that he could not begin to understand.

_"You have a choice Draco." Harry had not turned from his spot overlooking Hogwart grounds, idly watching the bursts of red that signaled deadly, though not forbidden, spells being cast in battle, even as his lover's footsteps paused in their path towards the door. "Stay, fight with me. We'll bring the bastard down and the world will be free again."_

_He sensed rather than saw the blond turn towards him, hesitation clear in his movements but as the silence stretched out between them, Harry knew he had already lost the most important battle, "I can't…" so he would try no more to convince him away from his beliefs- after all, Harry understood Draco's need for love after so long living neglected and he knew that he was the only one that knew that pain. _

_He just wished Draco would look for it in him rather than where he would never find it._

_Still, as he watched furious red spells burst in the crowd before him and heard the fading of his lover's footsteps- probably for the last time, he still loved the other boy with all his heart and would lie for him, would sell his very soul for him, if it meant bringing him back to his side after the war was won just as he knew Draco would do for him._

Pulling out the tattered piece of rubber from his pocket, he fingered the thing with nostalgia and not just a bit of love. It held holes in places, having dilapidated over time and the only reason it still existed being the fact that he discovered preserving charms in his second year of schooling and had set upon it rudimentary ones that held it in tact even to this day.

It would, however, not fly in this condition so he pulled out his wand and set to work.

_The battle was drawing to an end, the bursts of red, bloody spells bursting around him now that he had rejoined the battle, having no more reason to put it off now that his lover no longer held him in his arms._

_He was rather single minded at the moment, however, ignoring aurors, order members, and death eaters alike in his fervent search of what would finally end this battle. He would not risk attacking his lover by fighting the masked men whose identities he would not know until they became just another body._

_How dreadful it would be if he cast the curse that ended his Draco's life._

_It was not to be, however, for suddenly there was an agonized scream and Harry turned just in time to watch the familiar body crumple to the ground, having taken the killing curse, from the very hands he had once served, for Harry. _

_The mask slipped from familiar blond locks to reveal pale skin and unseeing gray eyes and Harry was filled with such rage that he would never find it in himself to feel guilt in his first kill as the Dark Lord Voldemort fried, a blood red _burning_ curse having hissed from Harry's wand and Tom Riddle died in that moment because, while he could survive the killing curse of any other being, he could not survive the rage of the being he had inadvertently created one Hallows Eve night._

_Kneeling beside his blond lover, he pressed chapped lips to a paling forehead and whispered into the shell of an ear, even as terrorized voices rose up around them, feeling their lord's death physically, "_I love you, my Draco, my hero._"_

Smiling a sad smile, Harry pressed his lips to the balloon, filling it with the very air of life and, after he tied it off, he blessed it with the ability to fly and watched it as it rose higher and higher, even into the very heavens, until it was merely a red blur against a pink, starry sky then it was no more and Harry turned and walked down the stairs of the astronomy tower for the last time.

He would mourn for many years to come but he would live on, doing heroic deeds no longer because of a childish need to protect anything and everyone that gave him opportunity but in the name of his beloved that gave him another chance at life.

Then, when he finally passed on, old and gray, he would once again find haven in Draco's arms.

Pausing at the top of the steps, he blew a kiss towards the heavens and the little red balloon he could no longer see.

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_A/N: More Drarry one-shots tend to be written when I get reviews. :) Hope you guys enjoyed this one and I would really love to hear what you think of it. It definantly went heavy._


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